Kate Stewart: Confessions of a pipeline

It's been a traumatic few months.

Up until "the incident" I never knew how vital I was.

My life had been a solitary one. I didn't know my parents and had no siblings that I was aware of. I just grew up to be your average 170km Pipeline.

I kept to myself. My home was an underground sanctuary, away from the hustle and bustle of city living, which was exactly the way I liked it.

I knew that life of a different kind was being lived out above me though I chose not to explore it. I would hear things from time to time but overall I felt safe in my own surroundings.

My days were spent carrying aviation fuel to parts unknown. Things could get frantic at either end but life in the middle was idyllic. For the most part, I could just sit back and go with the flow. I kept myself entertained playing XBox and doing the whole social media thing. It was there I stumbled across Pipedreamz.com - an online dating site for pipes. Things were just starting to heat up with a curvy little number from Alaska but that was before the home invasion.

It's still difficult for me to talk about.

I was just taking it easy, doing my thing ... I heard rumblings, they were getting louder and nek minnit, out of nowhere, I was hit from above. The impact was so severe that I lost consciousness. When I finally came to I was cold and groggy. I knew I was exposed because I could feel the wind and I heard panicked voices.

I checked myself for visible wounds but my vision seemed somewhat impaired by the violent attack. I couldn't be positive but whilst everything appeared to be OK, from that day on I never quite felt 100 per cent again.

Rumour has it that I was hit by some bozo on a digger who was out plundering the Kauri reserves and that it was "an accident". More like a hit and run if you want my opinion. I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories but something seems dodgy to me. Details on the company operating the digger remain sketchy, to say the least. Probably some foreign-owned enterprise.

The next few weeks were a bit of a blur. I kept on pumping but I was more irritable than usual. It felt like this huge pressure was building inside of me. Then it happened, no warning ... I just lost it and finally cracked.

I made projectile vomiting look like a dripping tap!

Since then my life has become even crazier. My personal space is now constantly being invaded. I've been poked and prodded and left indecently exposed to the elements and the prying eyes of rubber-neckers. Specialists have been called in to assess my damage and I'm now awaiting life-saving pipe transplant surgery.

I know 17 metres seems like nothing in the grand scheme of things but from what I hear above ground, it could be the difference between flights and no flights.

Who knew, with my injuries, that little old me could bring about the cancellation of domestic and international flights and see a ban put on non-essential air travel by government employees, who, again, according to rumour, say they will be fine with video conferencing instead, which begs the question was/is the travel even necessary in the first place?

So that's where we are at the moment. I'm currently in counselling and have since been diagnosed with PTSD and then, to add insult to injury, my Pipedreamz girl messaged to say she wants nothing to do with me now I'm a cripple. I feel used and violated but the journaling seems to be helping.

Here's hoping that the surgery is plain sailing or should that be plane sailing? JAFA's, in particular, could get very nasty if starved of fuel for too long.

I wonder whether the operating budget will stretch to jelly and ice cream when I wake up.

Fuel injected feedback welcome: investik8@gmail.com